The throughput of communications, between multiple computing devices that are transmitted via network connections, continues to increase. For example, modern networking hardware enables physically separate computing devices to communicate with one another orders of magnitude faster than was possible with prior generations of networking hardware. Furthermore, high-speed network communication capabilities are being made available to a greater number of people, both in the locations where people work, and in their homes. As a result, an increasing amount of data and services can be meaningfully provided via such network communications. For example, audio and video entertainment can now be stored in a single, centralized location and accessed by multiple individuals “on-demand” by streaming such content, via network communications, from the centralized location to the computing devices utilized by those multiple individuals at their respective locations. Similarly, a greater variety of services can be provided over network communications including, for example, services that were traditionally executed locally on individual computing devices.
To provide such data and services, via network communications, from a centralized location, the centralized location typically comprises hundreds or thousands of computing devices, typically mounted in vertically oriented racks. Such a collection of computing devices, as well as the associated hardware necessary to support such computing devices, and the physical structure that houses the computing devices and associated hardware, is traditionally referred to as a “datacenter”. With the increasing availability of high-speed network communication capabilities, and thus the increasing provision of data and services from centralized locations, as well as the traditional utilization of datacenters, such as the provision of advanced computing services and massive amounts of computing processing capability, the size and quantity of datacenters continues to increase.
Data centers often consume large quantities of electrical power, especially by the computing devices themselves. Increasingly, the cost of such electrical power is becoming a primary determinant in the economic success of a data center. Consequently, it can be desirable to monitor the power consumption of computing devices in a data center. Such power monitoring is performed by an independent device that is connected between whatever computing device's power consumption is being measured and the power source. Such an independent power monitoring device then monitors the electrical power that passes through it as such power is consumed by the computing device whose power consumption is being measured.
Unfortunately, independent power monitoring devices can be expensive to purchase and install especially if each computing device from among the thousands of computing devices in a typical data center is to be independently monitored since such a scenario would require the purchase and installation of thousands of such independent power monitoring devices. Additionally, power meters can also be very inaccurate at the lower current levels at which computing devices tend to operate. If, alternatively, such independent power monitoring devices are installed to monitor the power for collections of computing devices in aggregate, then their cost can be reduced, since a reduced number of such independent power monitoring devices would be required. However, such an alternative, less-expensive arrangement loses the ability to monitor the power consumption of individual computing devices, since each independent power monitoring device would only be able to monitor the power consumed, in aggregate, by all of the computing devices drawing power through such an independent power monitoring device and would not be able to distinguish the power consumed by any one specific computing device.